Images/Attributes & Their Interpretations

Kali is one of the most distinctive of the Hindu Pantheon, and is generally pretty easy to detect from her iconography. Noted attributes include: a blue or black color (as befits a goddess known as the "dark" one); a strikingly red and lolling, outstretched tongue; an often emaciated appearance; multiple arms holding variations of a sword, a severed head, a skull-cap bowl, various weapons, as well as hands in typical "fear not" mudras; a garland made up of 50 skulls and a girdle of severed arms; sometimes depicted in a graveyard with jackals; sometimes dressed in a tiger or lion skin; wild hair.